House members rip into VA

House members lashed out at Veterans Affairs officials Wednesday evening over a broadening VA medical scandal that has increasingly prompted calls for VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle criticized the Department of Veterans Affairs, aggressively cutting off the VA officials sent to testify and promising stepped-up oversight. The House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing, which began without opening statements for the three VA officials, stretched past 10 p.m. with a second round of questioning for members.

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Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), the committee’s chairman, denounced the department for failing to comply with the committee’s request for all emails and documents about the alleged destruction of waiting lists at the VA’s Phoenix medical facility.

He argued the failure was part of a larger VA pattern of stonewalling the committee’s requests.

“Ma’am, veterans died. Get us the answers please,” Miller told Joan Mooney, VA’s assistant secretary for legislative affairs. “Until VA understands that we’re deadly serious, you can expect us to be over your shoulder every single day.”

Miller, who earlier today called for Shinseki’s resignation, was frequently dissatisfied with the VA officials’ responses.

“Can you say anything without reading from your notes?” he asked Mooney.

The release of a highly critical VA inspector general report Wednesday fueled calls from lawmakers for Shinseki to step down. At the hearing, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) said he, too, believes Shinseki should resign.

Thomas Lynch, an assistant deputy undersecretary for health at the VA, is reviewing the allegations in Phoenix, where CNN first reported that veterans died waiting for treatment. He said at Wednesday’s hearing that the wait lists at the center of the panel’s subpoena were destroyed because they were an “intermediate work product” and contained patient information. He also objected to calling them “secret wait lists.”

Still, Lynch acknowledged that VA had potentially “lost true north,” and that the focus on meeting the 14-day wait-time goal had overshadowed the need to care for veterans.

The VA officials’ testimony did little to slow the criticism from lawmakers, including several Democrats. Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) asked each of the witnesses whether they felt personally responsible for the deaths of the veterans in Phoenix, and she asked Mooney at one point whether she would resign.

Members repeatedly took aim at the officials for referring questions to the VA’s general counsel, who was not at the hearing.

Miller said he still thinks the VA failed to comply with the committee’s subpoena. The VA delivered on Tuesday the last batch of 5,500 documents relating to the subpoena, but Miller chided VA for withholding some documents, citing attorney-client privilege.

“I am not at all convinced they have conducted a thorough and complete search for records,” Miller said.